


Indulgences

by Susan



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-26
Updated: 2012-02-26
Packaged: 2017-10-31 18:05:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/346915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Susan/pseuds/Susan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bobby told Dean once that Purgatory was heaven's green room.<br/>Coda to Family Matters</p>
            </blockquote>





	Indulgences

It takes Dean a few seconds to recognize the number. Another few to shake the whiskey out of his voice. “Ben?”

“Dean?”

“Yeah. Where the hell are you? It’s after eleven.” Dean never understands why worried always comes out sounding so angry.

“In some motel near the highway. Ohio, I think.”

“Where’s Li – your mom?”

“Looking for a Walgreen’s that’s still open. I told her I felt sick.”

“Are you?”

“Yes . . . no.” Ben’s voice cracks and then he’s crying about how he wants to go home, only there’s no home to go to and how he hates driving all day – she makes me sit in the back seat like I’m a baby or something – and how he misses his friends but mostly how much he misses Dean. “I hate you,” Ben whispers. He sniffs and Dean can picture him swiping the back of his sleeve across his nose. Kid never used a Kleenex. “Come get us. Please. I don’t care what you did.”

“Your mom – ” he starts and then stops. “It’s complicated.”

“That’s what she says.”

“Look, Ben. I did something wrong. And it could’ve hurt you.”

“Didn’t Sam ever do anything wrong?”

“Lots of things.”

“But he’s still your brother, right? Why can’t you still be my . . .”

Then Dean hears Lisa’s voice in the background saying something about Pepto-Bismol, and Ben clicks the phone shut.

 

Dean splashes the rest of the Jim Beam into his glass. Checks the time again and yawns. Twelve-thirty. Keeping one eye on Sam is hard when the bastard refuses to sleep.

But he’s still your brother, right?

“Sam?”

Sam’s lying on his stomach on the green tartan bedspread playing Sudoku. He counts to nine under his breath for the hundredth time that evening. “This shit is hard, man.” He glances over at Dean. “What?”

“Just sounds like counting to me, Sammy.” He takes a breath, empties the glass. “Where we headed tomorrow? Grandpa Walton fill you in yet?”

Sam sits up and swings his legs over the side of the bed. “West, I think. Why?”

“Just wondering.” He leans against the dresser and stares at Sam for a minute, looking for something familiar to hang onto.

“Go to bed, Dean.” He stands and pulls back the sheet on Dean’s bed. “Get in.”

“You sing me a lullaby and I swear I’ll rip your heart out.”

Sam almost smiles and Dean’s stomach flip-flops. The whiskey or his brother’s smile – he can’t be sure.

 

The next day, they follow Samuel north through Colorado and across to Nebraska. They eat lunch at a picnic table outside Julesburg, until the rain catches up with them and chases them back into the car.

“We hunted a ghost here once. Remember?” Dean brushes the crumbs from a pastrami and cheese sandwich off his shirt.

Sam nods. “I don’t think he ever accepted that he was dead. I remember I felt kind of sorry for him – he wasn’t bothering anyone. Except Dad, I guess.”

“You felt sorry for all of them back then.” Back when you had a soul.

They drive all afternoon, the rain following them the whole way. At North Platte, Sam turns south towards McCook where they spend the night. They killed a shape shifter there once, so it’s almost like going home.

 

Sam picks up the cell phone on the second ring. He glances at the number and hands it to Dean. “It’s for you.”

“Lisa?” he asks and Sam shrugs.

It’s Ben.

“You okay, kid?” It seems to Dean that he has spent a lifetime saying that. First to Sam. Now to Ben.

“Yeah. I guess. Mom rented an apartment. I got my own room but she has to sleep on the sofa. It turns into a bed though. She says it’s just for now. I start a new school on tomorrow. Luft or Luff or something. It probably sucks.”

“All new schools suck. It’s kinda like a rule.”

“If I join the basketball team, can you come to a game sometimes? I know you can’t be the coach anymore, but . . .”

“Sure,” Dean says. He suspects they both know it’s a lie.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to tell anyone this, but I heard Mom on the phone with the landlord. She said her name was Sharon Osborne.”

Dean grimaces as a hundred aliases ran through his head.

 

_Sam handed Dean one of the new embossed ID cards. A shapeshifter in Duluth had eaten their wallets the week before. A long embarrassing story they had pinkie sworn never to tell their father._

_“Who the hell is Eddie Vedder?”_

_“Seriously, dude? You said if I went to get them, I could choose.”_

_“What’d you get?” Dean grabbed one from Sam’s hand. “Jon Bon Jovi? You’re fucking kidding me. I’ve just joined New Kids on the Block.”_

“Dean? You still there?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“I’m sorry too. About what I said last time. I don’t hate you.” And then he’s gone.

“Good night, Ozzy,” Dean says into the silence. Sam looks up from his Sudoku game and tilts his head and damn if Dean doesn’t recognize that look. It’s the same look Data gave Captain Picard every time things got touchy-feely on the Enterprise.

Dean opens the laptop and googles elementary schools. No record of a Luft but there’s a Luff School in Independence, Missouri. It makes sense – Lisa said she had cousins in Kansas City. He glances at the clock, calculates he could be there in twelve hours if he left now. He could explain about the vampires, make her understand.

Fuck the alphas. Fuck Samuel.

Fuck Sam.

But he’s still your brother, right?

The phone rings again and for a few seconds Dean lets himself believe it’s Lisa. But it’s Samuel telling him and Sam to be ready to leave the next morning at six. “We’re headed south. Got a tip of a sighting in Gainsville. Crowley wants us to follow up on it.”

“Whatever.” Turns out working for Crowley isn’t that different than working for John.

****

Bobby told Dean once that purgatory was like heaven’s green room. “It’s where all the lost souls hang out until God figures out what to do with them.”

Dean figures they're already there. Feet on the cushions, eating Fritos and drinking wine from a box, waiting. Him, Sam, Lisa, Ben, even Crowley. Waiting for God to make up his fucking mind. The problem was he was never good at waiting. He fingers the Missouri map hidden in his jacket and follows the Creepy Campbell caravan onto the Interstate.

fin


End file.
